Pleasures of motorcycling

The original article by Mr. Sachin Rao, and this article is actually an archive of a post from HARD TORQUE on http://www.xbhp.com
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The pleasure principle

25 Sep ’02 – Sachin Rao

It was hardly 60 km from Delhi on the NH8 when I pulled into a highway eatery for a break. I’d been holding consistent three-digit speeds for a blissfully long stretch on the Pulsar and a nice cold bottle of water was in order. I dismounted, dumped all my gear on the bike and drank deep. A man of about fifty-five or sixty paying his bill who was watching, looked at my numberplate and stepped towards me.

“Where are you coming from?”

“Been on a Rajasthan tour.”

“Oh? How many kilometres?”

“1,650 so far.”

“By motorcycle? Alone??”

No, I wanted to say, this bike, luggage and all that gear, it’s just a prop, my gang of loud friends with a boombox and party hats are just behind with the trailer van. What does it look like?

“Yeah,” I said instead.

“Then what is the pleasure?” he asked quizzically.

I only smiled as he walked to his Esteem VX, got in and slowly drove off.